


For the Ones That Carry On

by voodoochild



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dystopia, Gen, The 28th Amendment Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-16
Updated: 2011-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:59:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When it is done, they will call her Deborah; for the faithful, for the judge, for the woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Ones That Carry On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melliyna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melliyna/gifts).



> Written for Lil's song prompt of Heather Dale's "Hero". The 28th Amendment universe belongs to Henry, and I'm just borrowing it. The Nancy-and-Rahm offshoot, though, is mine, though I don't own any people living or dead in this story.

_We stared into the wind that tore away our breath  
We left behind a message that can not be claimed by death  
A hero lives forever for the ones that carry on  
What will they say about you when I'm gone?_

When it is done, they will call her Deborah.

Deborah, for the Judge. Deborah, faithful of Israel (and even through it all, she's always remained loyal to him). Deborah, who rode into battle beside Barak. Nancy is all of these things, but while she accepts the name, she is not worthy of it.

Deborah spoke plainly for the crowds, but Nancy tells her story in whispers and scribbled correspondence. She is the light in the darkness of Terre Haute, the woman the others point to and say "she'll make it". And she has to live up to it, has lived up to high expectations her entire life, so she holds her head high. She placates the guards and teachers with perfect scripture recitations, and she gathers the women together at night and tells her story.

Only one of Twenty-Three, those now-fabled and hunted people, but they see her as everything she was not. Architect. Herald. Martyr. Those were Rahm and Teddy and Joe, not Nancy, who didn't see the Amendment or the purges coming. So she tells of those men. She tells of Barack in exile, stranger in a strange land, who could have been the new light of the world. She tells of the resolution and how it was so much more than just the manifesto of the Twenty-Three. How it was meant to be a call to arms for all of America.

There are things she doesn't tell them. They've all seen the footage - Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, Hillary Clinton, walking out of Russell to face the Home Guard. She never talks about those last moments in Hillary's office before they walked out to face the guards. How she and Rahm and Hillary cried, how their hands shook as they raised them in the air. They know the outcome - Hillary dead, Nancy and Rahm imprisoned - but she doesn't tell the women about how loud the gunshots were when Hillary was killed or how she screamed.

None of the women at Terre Haute, even Rachel, who is so much stronger than Nancy will ever be, believe they'll survive. The indoctrination is too much. The guards are too cruel. They can't live the lie they need to be released. Sometimes Nancy agrees with them.

But then she remembers a promise: _I'll get us out._

Rahm doesn't break his promises. Not to her. It will take time, but when it happens, it too will become the stuff of legend. Their midnight escape, fleeing to the Illinois border with Keith, Rachel, and Ana Marie. Instructions for the other women left in Rachel's cell.

Nancy will write of it all, in snippets Keith smuggles to Stephen Colbert and his Underground Update. Stephen will share her story - the stories of all the men and women of the Underground - and the chronicle will go on to be one of the best-known of those dark times. They will honor her with medals and dedications, but it will mean nothing, because she isn't the one they should be honoring.

The accolades should have gone to Rahm, but he's dead and it's her fault.

Oh, there are hundreds of justifications she could make, but the only thing that matters is that he's gone. He is remembered as one of the Twenty-Three, as one of the only people to ever escape from Terre Haute, but the world will never know his true worth, no matter what Nancy writes. All he is now is a martyr on the steps of Old St. Patrick's, and she never saw it coming. No one had.

When she meets Barack at the memorial ceremony, ten years later, they remember Rahm the way he would want: two bottles of tequila and stories about the House and the campaign trail. Their best Rahmbo Tales.

She hopes it's enough.


End file.
